I have come 180 degrees on the subject of abortion. I have thought a great deal about it, listened to debates about it, considered all the many points of view on it, and even been involved in it, and I now believe that abortion is morally wrong. My position, in essence, is quite simple: Since we do not know and cannot decide precisely when the embryo becomes a human being, we must, as moral people, err on the side of life.
There are those who argue that humanity invests itself at the end of the first trimester, and so, up until that time, abortion is morally unobjectionable. But these people must be required to answer the following question: Why is abortion permissible on the 90th day, say and not permissible on the 91st? Why is it permissible at 11:59 pm of the 90th day, but morally wrong at 12:01 am of the 91st? When called to answer this question, their argument falls apart. Especially in face of the fact that every pregnancy is different, and so, even if one accepts the idea that humanity invests itself at a discernible point in pregnancy, does that point not differ from one pregnancy to the next?
Now, I am acutely aware that pregnancy is a matter more urgently pressing on the woman than the man. From this, it is argued that it is the woman who ought to have the right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy. But as a father (and one who holds fatherhood as a sacred obligation), I take exception to this. The father is physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually linked to the new life (or ought to be - if not, he is a swine and not a man), and so should have nearly as much say as the mother. Indeed, I would support any father who insists that an abortion of his child can not take place over his objections. Nonetheless, since the actual burden of pregnancy falls harder on the woman, it seems irresistible that she have the prevailing voice.
Given this, if a pregnancy must be terminated (and the reasons ought to be compelling, even overwhelming), then it seems to me that a convenient point of demarcation would be the presence of a heartbeat, which generally occurs about the fifth to seventh week. I offer this opinion only with the greatest reluctance, out of a need to set some defining limit to the option of abortion that may minimize the possibility of the commission of a grave moral wrong.
However, in general, I do believe that abortion is morally wrong, and ought to be approached only with the utmost caution and careful deliberation. That it is the most common form of elective surgery performed upon women in our country is a disgrace, and utterly unconscionable. One does not counter moral irresponsibility such as unwanted pregnancy by committing a greater moral error such as abortion. This simply multiplies the moral wrong and drags those who commit it into deeper guilt. One does not solve a moral problem by committing an immoral act.
Clearly, taking responsibility for one's sexual behavior is the key to resolving this matter, but since our society does not appear inclined to praise restraint and discourage indulgence (just the opposite, in fact, is usually the case) the primary and most effective solution will probably not prevail. Given that, it seems to me imperative to educate our young people to the moral, psychological and spiritual implications of abortion; not simply to offer it as the first and most convenient solution.
Though at one time in my life (a much earlier time) I agreed with the feminists and the abortion advocates, I now see those who militate for abortion rights as morally blind, degraded and self-deluding people. In almost every case, I am inclined to believe, they have succumbed to the dictates of a political agenda, or of personal interest, or are in the grip of a private guilt which they are trying to assuage by elevating it to the level of civil liberties, privacy rights or gender politics. Whatever the case, they are avoiding the simple moral imperative that, when in doubt on matters of life and death, we must, as moral beings, err on the side of life. The imperative is that we ought to do to others as we would have them do to us - yes, even to unborn others; the fact that our humanity is measured by the extent to which we recognize and reverence humanity in others - yes, even unborn others.
I find it curious that so many of those who advocate abortion rights also oppose capital punishment. Here, it seems to me, the values of such 'progressive' thinkers are characteristically inverted. Such people take the position that innocent, unborn life ought to be destroyed, but that guilty, mature life ought to be preserved. This is backwards. If we are to take a position for and against life, surely it must be that innocent life should be preserved, and guilty life (guilty of the most heinous crimes) should be destroyed. I find the argument for abortion and against capital punishment utterly inane.
The decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is a heavy and solemn one. One piece of advice I might offer in helping to make this decision is this: Give the fetus a name. Do not refer to it by such politically driven sophistries as "tissue mass" or "non-viable embryo," but name it, if only with a nickname. (In my case, we called my first child Chip in the womb, and the second, Squeak.) Then, in considering whether to abort, use the name in your discussions. Do not speak about "the fetus " or "the pregnancy"; rather, use your chosen name or nickname, and then see if you can as easily decide to abort.
This is precisely the kind of thing that the abortion advocates do not want us to do, but that, as human beings, we naturally tend to do. And in this there is a warning: Whenever we act in contradiction to our natural human tendencies, especially for the sake of a political or personal agenda, we are probably doing wrong.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Hollywood
I suppose I ought to post here some reflections on my career as a Hollywood screenwriter, since that is what most people seem to want to know about. Why that should be so, I can only guess.','I have for fifteen years now worked full-time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. It is my career, my professional identity; both the chief source of my income, and the sole source of whatever fascination I may hold for strangers. And it is strange that this should be so. I never wanted to write screenplays, never held them in particularly high esteem, and still do not, though I have practiced the craft with some degree of success. I will take time here to write about the creative process and the commercial business of screenwriting, neither of which is well understood by people outside the industry (the former is almost completely misunderstood by people within it), as well as about the role and status of the screenwriter in Hollywood.
But I will also, from time to time, describe experiences I have had in the business, and reflect upon those experiences, and the personalities that populate them. I will try to avoid gossip, not only because I do not care for it myself, but also because I am still very much employed by and with those about whom I would be tattling. Still, it is diverting, and apparently an endless source of fascination to the public, to talk about the peculiar creatures who inhabit this bizarre world, and even I may not be able to avoid the temptation of sharing tidbits.
I have had a great deal of good fortune, and have had the pleasure of associating with many fine people, in the Hollywood community. I am not bitter about the business (which has by-and-large been good to me), but I have become rather cynical about certain aspects of it. I have also had in Hollywood some of the most disheartening and demeaning experiences a writer can have, and I have had the misfortune of having worked with some of the worst people I ever hope to encounter. I expect that I will have some things to say about all of this, too.
And so, for those of you who cannot restrain your curiosity about what life in the Hollywood film business is really like, you shall have my rather limited perspective on it, for what it may or may not be worth.
But I will also, from time to time, describe experiences I have had in the business, and reflect upon those experiences, and the personalities that populate them. I will try to avoid gossip, not only because I do not care for it myself, but also because I am still very much employed by and with those about whom I would be tattling. Still, it is diverting, and apparently an endless source of fascination to the public, to talk about the peculiar creatures who inhabit this bizarre world, and even I may not be able to avoid the temptation of sharing tidbits.
I have had a great deal of good fortune, and have had the pleasure of associating with many fine people, in the Hollywood community. I am not bitter about the business (which has by-and-large been good to me), but I have become rather cynical about certain aspects of it. I have also had in Hollywood some of the most disheartening and demeaning experiences a writer can have, and I have had the misfortune of having worked with some of the worst people I ever hope to encounter. I expect that I will have some things to say about all of this, too.
And so, for those of you who cannot restrain your curiosity about what life in the Hollywood film business is really like, you shall have my rather limited perspective on it, for what it may or may not be worth.
On Priest Sexual Abuse
I was born and raised a Catholic in the strictest sense. I attended Catholic grade school, high-school and college, I served as an altar boy in my parish for ten years, and, after college, I worked as a volunteer with the Catholic missions in Africa, living in a Jesuit community. I have thus experienced Catholicism from every conceivable point of view: as a birthright, as a family practice, as a participant in worship services, in the form of education, and living in close association with priests and nuns. When the clergy sexual abuse scandals broke over the Church and the nation, they came as little surprise to me.
Abuse of children was part of the institutional fabric of Catholicism as I experienced it. We children in Catholic schools, from the earliest age, were subjected to systematic abuse, intimidation and mistreatment by both nuns and priests; an abuse that was not only accepted by our parents, but was, in fact, reverenced by them, and boasted of by the perpetrators. The nuns and priests who raised us in loco parentis (that is, in the place of our parents) believed they had a God-sanctioned right to engage in the cruelest, most degrading and hurtful forms of psychological abuse and physical mistreatment on almost a daily basis.
I will not enumerate here the many examples of such abuse to which I was witness as a child, and of which I was, myself, the victim. Suffice it to say that brow-beatings and actual physical beatings were commonplace in the schools which I attended. Intensifying the effects of this abuse was the use of spiritual inducements and threats by the clerics to whose care our parents entrusted us. They did not scruple to rationalize their mistreatment of children on the grounds that they were enacting God’s will, nor did they shrink from terrifying us with the prospect of eternal damnation to unspeakable agony if we did not submit to their control. No child should be subjected to such righteous terrorism.
That many of the nuns and priests with whom I came into contact were deeply disturbed people who sought refuge and legitimization in the clergy is now beyond question in my mind. Most of the nuns who taught me were self-loathing women whose hatred of their own gender, and terror of sexuality, had driven them to hide themselves in locked convents and beneath yards of black muslin. The priests, as I came to know them, were frustrated, lonely men, often suffering from severe sexual confusion, whose lack of faith and purpose in their lives deepened as they aged, driving them to such destructive behaviors as alcoholism and sexual perversion.
In saying this, I wish to point out that the sexual abuse scandals with which we have become familiar are only one aspect (albeit the worst) of a systematic attitude of abuse toward children which has characterized the Catholic Church in my experience. This is not to say that there are not many fine, well-intentioned and devout men and women serving the Church; but I wish to express here my firm conviction that sexual abuse among Catholic clergy is far more widespread than either we suspect or the Church will ever acknowledge.
If, for example, the Boston Archdiocese admits to 400 abusive priests, that is only because it knows of 400 more, suspects 400 beyond that, and remains unaware of another 400. I am thus prepared to state that, in my opinion, the sexual abuse problem within the Church is three or four times greater than that which has so far come to the fore. Indeed, I will say that sexual misconduct among priests is common, and not the rare exception, and that it is being covered up by men – bishops and cardinals – who are guilty of it themselves.
Guilt on the part of the hierarchy is only the first of three reasons which I perceive for the strident, almost hysterical, attempts by the Church to cover up the abuse scandal. The second is, of course, financial. Knowing the true extent of the abuse, Catholic leaders understand that the lawsuits provoked by it may well bankrupt the Church. In my own view, this would actually be a boon to Catholicism, which for centuries has sacrificed its spiritual birthright on the altar of wealth. An impoverished Catholic Church might be forced back on its spiritual roots, and rediscover the meaning which the religion has lost. It may, as a result of bankruptcy, become once again a mystical body ministering to the spiritual needs of its members, rather than a sprawling fiscal and worldly empire awash in its own hypocrisy and greed.
The third reason for the cover-up is much more subtle, and, to Church leaders, much more dangerous. The Roman Church, uniquely among Christian cults, claims for its priests the miraculous power to transform the bread and wine of the Mass into the physical body and blood of Christ. This miraculous ability, called transubstantiation, is the essence of the liturgy, and so, lies at the heart of the Church itself.
Now the Church finds itself in the untenable position of having to admit that those same consecrated hands of priests, which it claims perform the miracle of the Eucharist, are also capable of raping little children. Those blessed fingers, which daily bring God to Earth and hold his physical body, may have, just the night before, violated the body of a child. To prevent this idea reaching the public consciousness, the Church will, and has, gone to every length imaginable to suppress and minimize the clergy abuse scandal. For, just as the resultant lawsuits threaten to strip the Church of its wealth, an awareness of this contradiction threatens to strip it of its soul.
It is simply impossible for any right-thinking Catholic, no matter how fervent, to sustain in his mind the idea that the miraculous power of the Mass can co-exist with the commission of child rape. It is impossible to maintain faith in the Eucharist when its sacred miracle can be performed by a man who sexually molests children.
In short: No one can believe that a child rapist can possess miraculous spiritual power. Yet this is precisely what the Church maintains when it declares, as it does: Once a priest, always a priest. To which I respond: Once a child molester, always a child molester. The two cannot be the same person: he is either one or the other; either a priest possessed of miraculous power, or a monster of the worst sort imaginable. But to the Church, they are the same thing. And this, Church leaders cannot allow the public to contemplate.
This damning contradiction is the true threat which Church leaders perceive in the priest abuse scandals. Not even bankruptcy menaces so much as this, since money may be recovered in one way or another. But the spiritual core of the Church once lost, the entire edifice crumbles into dust. And so, the Church will transfer priests from parish to parish, spreading the infection of molestation to unsuspecting children in city after city, it will shield and conceal guilty monsters, it will refuse to admit their crimes, refuse to turn over their personnel records to the authorities, hide behind claims of protected status and statutes of limitations, and offer the most cynical and self-serving settlements to the victims, in hopes, above all, of covering up, not just the abuse, but the untenable theological contradiction exposed by the abuse.
This contradiction strikes at the very core of the Catholic faith, which must be lost forever in the hearts of Catholics who love and cherish the health and safety of innocent children more than they do that of their guilty Church.
Abuse of children was part of the institutional fabric of Catholicism as I experienced it. We children in Catholic schools, from the earliest age, were subjected to systematic abuse, intimidation and mistreatment by both nuns and priests; an abuse that was not only accepted by our parents, but was, in fact, reverenced by them, and boasted of by the perpetrators. The nuns and priests who raised us in loco parentis (that is, in the place of our parents) believed they had a God-sanctioned right to engage in the cruelest, most degrading and hurtful forms of psychological abuse and physical mistreatment on almost a daily basis.
I will not enumerate here the many examples of such abuse to which I was witness as a child, and of which I was, myself, the victim. Suffice it to say that brow-beatings and actual physical beatings were commonplace in the schools which I attended. Intensifying the effects of this abuse was the use of spiritual inducements and threats by the clerics to whose care our parents entrusted us. They did not scruple to rationalize their mistreatment of children on the grounds that they were enacting God’s will, nor did they shrink from terrifying us with the prospect of eternal damnation to unspeakable agony if we did not submit to their control. No child should be subjected to such righteous terrorism.
That many of the nuns and priests with whom I came into contact were deeply disturbed people who sought refuge and legitimization in the clergy is now beyond question in my mind. Most of the nuns who taught me were self-loathing women whose hatred of their own gender, and terror of sexuality, had driven them to hide themselves in locked convents and beneath yards of black muslin. The priests, as I came to know them, were frustrated, lonely men, often suffering from severe sexual confusion, whose lack of faith and purpose in their lives deepened as they aged, driving them to such destructive behaviors as alcoholism and sexual perversion.
In saying this, I wish to point out that the sexual abuse scandals with which we have become familiar are only one aspect (albeit the worst) of a systematic attitude of abuse toward children which has characterized the Catholic Church in my experience. This is not to say that there are not many fine, well-intentioned and devout men and women serving the Church; but I wish to express here my firm conviction that sexual abuse among Catholic clergy is far more widespread than either we suspect or the Church will ever acknowledge.
If, for example, the Boston Archdiocese admits to 400 abusive priests, that is only because it knows of 400 more, suspects 400 beyond that, and remains unaware of another 400. I am thus prepared to state that, in my opinion, the sexual abuse problem within the Church is three or four times greater than that which has so far come to the fore. Indeed, I will say that sexual misconduct among priests is common, and not the rare exception, and that it is being covered up by men – bishops and cardinals – who are guilty of it themselves.
Guilt on the part of the hierarchy is only the first of three reasons which I perceive for the strident, almost hysterical, attempts by the Church to cover up the abuse scandal. The second is, of course, financial. Knowing the true extent of the abuse, Catholic leaders understand that the lawsuits provoked by it may well bankrupt the Church. In my own view, this would actually be a boon to Catholicism, which for centuries has sacrificed its spiritual birthright on the altar of wealth. An impoverished Catholic Church might be forced back on its spiritual roots, and rediscover the meaning which the religion has lost. It may, as a result of bankruptcy, become once again a mystical body ministering to the spiritual needs of its members, rather than a sprawling fiscal and worldly empire awash in its own hypocrisy and greed.
The third reason for the cover-up is much more subtle, and, to Church leaders, much more dangerous. The Roman Church, uniquely among Christian cults, claims for its priests the miraculous power to transform the bread and wine of the Mass into the physical body and blood of Christ. This miraculous ability, called transubstantiation, is the essence of the liturgy, and so, lies at the heart of the Church itself.
Now the Church finds itself in the untenable position of having to admit that those same consecrated hands of priests, which it claims perform the miracle of the Eucharist, are also capable of raping little children. Those blessed fingers, which daily bring God to Earth and hold his physical body, may have, just the night before, violated the body of a child. To prevent this idea reaching the public consciousness, the Church will, and has, gone to every length imaginable to suppress and minimize the clergy abuse scandal. For, just as the resultant lawsuits threaten to strip the Church of its wealth, an awareness of this contradiction threatens to strip it of its soul.
It is simply impossible for any right-thinking Catholic, no matter how fervent, to sustain in his mind the idea that the miraculous power of the Mass can co-exist with the commission of child rape. It is impossible to maintain faith in the Eucharist when its sacred miracle can be performed by a man who sexually molests children.
In short: No one can believe that a child rapist can possess miraculous spiritual power. Yet this is precisely what the Church maintains when it declares, as it does: Once a priest, always a priest. To which I respond: Once a child molester, always a child molester. The two cannot be the same person: he is either one or the other; either a priest possessed of miraculous power, or a monster of the worst sort imaginable. But to the Church, they are the same thing. And this, Church leaders cannot allow the public to contemplate.
This damning contradiction is the true threat which Church leaders perceive in the priest abuse scandals. Not even bankruptcy menaces so much as this, since money may be recovered in one way or another. But the spiritual core of the Church once lost, the entire edifice crumbles into dust. And so, the Church will transfer priests from parish to parish, spreading the infection of molestation to unsuspecting children in city after city, it will shield and conceal guilty monsters, it will refuse to admit their crimes, refuse to turn over their personnel records to the authorities, hide behind claims of protected status and statutes of limitations, and offer the most cynical and self-serving settlements to the victims, in hopes, above all, of covering up, not just the abuse, but the untenable theological contradiction exposed by the abuse.
This contradiction strikes at the very core of the Catholic faith, which must be lost forever in the hearts of Catholics who love and cherish the health and safety of innocent children more than they do that of their guilty Church.
Abortion and the Culture of Death
I watched last year with alarm a pro-abortion demonstration in Washington, D.C., which was addressed by, among others, Hillary Clinton. Though she is now attempting to modify her position, in an effort, I suppose, to move closer to the political center as she prepares her candidacy for president (an unmistakable gesture of hypocrisy, I might add), at that time she appeared to be endorsing the unfettered right to abortion-on-demand. And while, as I have mentioned, there was a time in my life when I might have agreed with her, I now regard such advocacy with dismay.
We are, in this nation, it seems to me, moving more and more toward the acceptance of a culture of death. In cases where matters of life and death are uncertain, I note that we tend more and more often to opt for death, whereas, when I was a boy, such an attitude would have been unthinkable. I refer, for another example, to the Terri Schiavo case, when so many were clamoring so publicly for an end to the poor woman's life. 'How can they be so ardent in their advocacy of death?' I wondered at the time. 'Surely, if there is any doubt at all, decent people would support her right to life.'
I see many of my fellow citizens coming down on the side of death in such uncertain matters, and the fact disturbs me. This is especially so in view of the menace of terrorism, whose adherents are in love with death - others' as well as their own. Surely this is the ultimate degradation of humanity. Yet, just as the terrorists militate for death in the name of jihad or salvation, the advocates of abortion militate for death in the name of gender rights or reproductive freedom. But death is a human experience unlike any other; as the philosopher, Martin Heidegger, pointed out: Death is unique among human possibilities in that it alone cancels out all other possibilities.
I think that to the extent that we choose death over life, we cut our moral moorings as a society, and begin a drift toward a spiritual chaos from which it may not be possible to return. Our society is anchored by certain principles, which the Founding Fathers cherished, and among these is the belief in a sacred right to life. Yet with each passing decade I see these fastening principles being gnawed away by narrow interest groups seeking to advance selfish agendas, in defiance of the fact that no society can endure which is not grounded in a belief in immutable Truth, and the stabilizing strength that flows from that belief.
I wonder how long our society can sustain its moral center, and a confidence in its own goodness, in the face of the deliberate deaths of millions of unborn children. It is a carnage which continues day after day, and is rationalized, even sanctified, by the agendas of feminism and the far left, whose spokesmen argue that abortion rights are essential to the status of women and the safety of civil liberties. (One wonders what kind of status and safety must be sustained by the deaths of innocents.) In doing so, they assure us that we ought to feel no shame in exercising this inviolable right to terminate pregnancy, and in that I see the beginning of the end of their argument. For every wrongdoer, as a first order of business, seeks to dissociate shame from behavior, in order that others may follow his or her example without fear of guilt.
I recall a woman I once knew who, by the age of thirty-three, had had six abortions for the sake of her career. She was a successful woman, much admired in some quarters. Leaving aside the almost criminal irresponsibility of her sexual conduct, I asked her simply, 'Where are your children?' She sighed, a look of profound sadness came over her face, and she replied, 'They are all dead.' Not, 'They never existed;' not 'They were non-viable tissue mass;' simply, 'They are all dead.'
She had accepted the assurances of the advocates of abortion to rationalize her behavior; indeed, she had relied on them. Yet when she was asked in plain human terms about what she had done, her soul could not deny the guilt and sorrow that she felt. There was an emptiness in her being, an underpinning of remorse, which no polemic could assuage. Six times she had chosen death, for the sake of a life the happiness and dignity of which had been undermined by her choice. My conversation with her (and with others) has forced powerfully on me the suspicion that even the most 'enlightened' and progressive-thinking woman who aborts her children will come to realize eventually that she has done wrong, and will suffer for it, and no rationale on earth can heal that hurt.
We may allow ourselves to be blinded to the truth of our behavior by the public spokesmen of political points of view, but so were the Germans and the Russians, even as they watched their societies descend into chaos. It is we, and not the activists, who must live with the consequences of our choices, and, perhaps, answer for them after our deaths. In matters of moral crisis, each of us must ask himself or herself, not what the advocates of this or that position say, but, what does my heart say, what does my conscience say, what does my soul say? And if we do so honestly and earnestly, I believe that our humanity will answer in a voice that none of us can mistake or deny.
We are, in this nation, it seems to me, moving more and more toward the acceptance of a culture of death. In cases where matters of life and death are uncertain, I note that we tend more and more often to opt for death, whereas, when I was a boy, such an attitude would have been unthinkable. I refer, for another example, to the Terri Schiavo case, when so many were clamoring so publicly for an end to the poor woman's life. 'How can they be so ardent in their advocacy of death?' I wondered at the time. 'Surely, if there is any doubt at all, decent people would support her right to life.'
I see many of my fellow citizens coming down on the side of death in such uncertain matters, and the fact disturbs me. This is especially so in view of the menace of terrorism, whose adherents are in love with death - others' as well as their own. Surely this is the ultimate degradation of humanity. Yet, just as the terrorists militate for death in the name of jihad or salvation, the advocates of abortion militate for death in the name of gender rights or reproductive freedom. But death is a human experience unlike any other; as the philosopher, Martin Heidegger, pointed out: Death is unique among human possibilities in that it alone cancels out all other possibilities.
I think that to the extent that we choose death over life, we cut our moral moorings as a society, and begin a drift toward a spiritual chaos from which it may not be possible to return. Our society is anchored by certain principles, which the Founding Fathers cherished, and among these is the belief in a sacred right to life. Yet with each passing decade I see these fastening principles being gnawed away by narrow interest groups seeking to advance selfish agendas, in defiance of the fact that no society can endure which is not grounded in a belief in immutable Truth, and the stabilizing strength that flows from that belief.
I wonder how long our society can sustain its moral center, and a confidence in its own goodness, in the face of the deliberate deaths of millions of unborn children. It is a carnage which continues day after day, and is rationalized, even sanctified, by the agendas of feminism and the far left, whose spokesmen argue that abortion rights are essential to the status of women and the safety of civil liberties. (One wonders what kind of status and safety must be sustained by the deaths of innocents.) In doing so, they assure us that we ought to feel no shame in exercising this inviolable right to terminate pregnancy, and in that I see the beginning of the end of their argument. For every wrongdoer, as a first order of business, seeks to dissociate shame from behavior, in order that others may follow his or her example without fear of guilt.
I recall a woman I once knew who, by the age of thirty-three, had had six abortions for the sake of her career. She was a successful woman, much admired in some quarters. Leaving aside the almost criminal irresponsibility of her sexual conduct, I asked her simply, 'Where are your children?' She sighed, a look of profound sadness came over her face, and she replied, 'They are all dead.' Not, 'They never existed;' not 'They were non-viable tissue mass;' simply, 'They are all dead.'
She had accepted the assurances of the advocates of abortion to rationalize her behavior; indeed, she had relied on them. Yet when she was asked in plain human terms about what she had done, her soul could not deny the guilt and sorrow that she felt. There was an emptiness in her being, an underpinning of remorse, which no polemic could assuage. Six times she had chosen death, for the sake of a life the happiness and dignity of which had been undermined by her choice. My conversation with her (and with others) has forced powerfully on me the suspicion that even the most 'enlightened' and progressive-thinking woman who aborts her children will come to realize eventually that she has done wrong, and will suffer for it, and no rationale on earth can heal that hurt.
We may allow ourselves to be blinded to the truth of our behavior by the public spokesmen of political points of view, but so were the Germans and the Russians, even as they watched their societies descend into chaos. It is we, and not the activists, who must live with the consequences of our choices, and, perhaps, answer for them after our deaths. In matters of moral crisis, each of us must ask himself or herself, not what the advocates of this or that position say, but, what does my heart say, what does my conscience say, what does my soul say? And if we do so honestly and earnestly, I believe that our humanity will answer in a voice that none of us can mistake or deny.
Memorable Quotes
In the course of my reading I have come across some quotes which I have thought important enough to memorize. I will list them here in the hope that they may be of use to you, as they have been to me.
From Tolstoy:
That which gives life is the same in all things.
From Edwin Campion Vaughan, a World War I British infantry officer in the trenches of Flanders:
We may not be able to control our destiny, but we are responsible for our dignity.
From Sir Edmund Hillary. [While climbing the summit ridge of Everest, he was forced by a cornice onto a tiny ledge overhanging the south face. He glanced down between his boots to see the roofs of the Thyangboche Monastery, the highest permanent dwelling in the world, ten thousand feet below. He remarked:]
For a moment I considered the consequences of a slip, and then decided to put such unprofitable thoughts out of my mind.
From Tolstoy:
The inorganic is merely the life of that which we do not understand. For a flea, the inorganic is my fingernail. In the same way, evil is the non-understood good.
From the great German mystic, Meister Eckhart:
We must become pregnant with Nothing in order to give birth to God.
And also from Eckhart:
Your best chance of finding God is to look for Him where you left Him.
From Hamlet:
If it be not now, then 'tis to come. If 'tis not to come, then 'twill be now. And if it be not now, then surely it will come. The readiness is all.
From Lincoln:
Government should do nothing that the people can do better for themselves.
From Tolstoy:
All great art ultimately asks questions that are religious in nature.
From Dostoevsky:
Good and evil are two ends of a stick that bends back upon itself.
Tolstoy's threefold remedy for hurt:
1. Remember that you have done worse than the person who is hurting you.
2. Remember that in five or ten years, you will not even be able to recall the hurt.
3. Remember that the person who is hurting you cannot behave in any other way.
(It was many years before I understood the third point, but now, I believe it is true.)
From Churchill:
Anyone who is not a liberal before the age of thirty has no heart; anyone who is not a conservative after the age of forty has no brain.
(There is thus a ten-year period during which we may register as Independent.)
From William Blake:
We are led to believe a lie when we see with and not through the eye.
From Tolstoy:
Kindness is a necessary addition to everything.
From Gerard Manley Hopkins:
Nor mind had, no nor mouth expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed
From Tolstoy:
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
From Thomas Jefferson:
People suffer terribly in thinking of what was expected to happen, instead of what has actually happened.
From Robert Frost:
Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
From Hemingway:
Everyone needs a clean, well-lighted place.
From Robert Bolt:
You either write it, or you talk it to death.
From William Blake:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wildflower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour
From Tom Stoppard:
We emerge from the womb bloody and screaming, and knowing that for all the signposts in the world, there is only one direction, and time is its only measure.
From W.H. Auden:
Tears are round, the sea is deep,
Roll them overboard, and sleep.
From W.B Yeats:
(On rediscovering his creativity)
I will lie down where all the ladders start:
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
From Tolstoy:
Only one step lies between a five-year-old child and a man of my age. Between a newborn baby and a five-year-old child lies a huge distance. Between a fetus and a newborn baby lies an abyss; and between non-existence and a fetus lies not only an abyss, but a gulf that surpasses comprehension.
From Shakespeare:
Thou hast nor youth nor age, but as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, dreaming on both.
This thou perceiv'st which makes thy love more strong
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
From Tolstoy's diary:
Sometimes a man tells a woman more than he should. He forgets, but she never does. The worst thing is not a woman who holds a man by his balls, but she who holds him by his soul.
From War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator (Actually, Mac Grider, a young World War I pilot):
Courage is doing your duty even though you're scared as hell... It takes a brave man even to experience fear.
From W. H. Auden:
You shall love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart.
From Dylan Thomas:
Now as I was young and easy
In the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying,
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
From T. S. Eliot:
Shall I, after tea and cakes and ices
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted,
Wept and prayed, though I have seen my head,
Grown slightly bald, brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet, and here's no great matter.
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat
And snicker, and in short: I was afraid.
From Tolstoy:
Speak less. We often regret having spoken too much, but we never regret remaining silent.
From Tolstoy:
That which gives life is the same in all things.
From Edwin Campion Vaughan, a World War I British infantry officer in the trenches of Flanders:
We may not be able to control our destiny, but we are responsible for our dignity.
From Sir Edmund Hillary. [While climbing the summit ridge of Everest, he was forced by a cornice onto a tiny ledge overhanging the south face. He glanced down between his boots to see the roofs of the Thyangboche Monastery, the highest permanent dwelling in the world, ten thousand feet below. He remarked:]
For a moment I considered the consequences of a slip, and then decided to put such unprofitable thoughts out of my mind.
From Tolstoy:
The inorganic is merely the life of that which we do not understand. For a flea, the inorganic is my fingernail. In the same way, evil is the non-understood good.
From the great German mystic, Meister Eckhart:
We must become pregnant with Nothing in order to give birth to God.
And also from Eckhart:
Your best chance of finding God is to look for Him where you left Him.
From Hamlet:
If it be not now, then 'tis to come. If 'tis not to come, then 'twill be now. And if it be not now, then surely it will come. The readiness is all.
From Lincoln:
Government should do nothing that the people can do better for themselves.
From Tolstoy:
All great art ultimately asks questions that are religious in nature.
From Dostoevsky:
Good and evil are two ends of a stick that bends back upon itself.
Tolstoy's threefold remedy for hurt:
1. Remember that you have done worse than the person who is hurting you.
2. Remember that in five or ten years, you will not even be able to recall the hurt.
3. Remember that the person who is hurting you cannot behave in any other way.
(It was many years before I understood the third point, but now, I believe it is true.)
From Churchill:
Anyone who is not a liberal before the age of thirty has no heart; anyone who is not a conservative after the age of forty has no brain.
(There is thus a ten-year period during which we may register as Independent.)
From William Blake:
We are led to believe a lie when we see with and not through the eye.
From Tolstoy:
Kindness is a necessary addition to everything.
From Gerard Manley Hopkins:
Nor mind had, no nor mouth expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed
From Tolstoy:
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
From Thomas Jefferson:
People suffer terribly in thinking of what was expected to happen, instead of what has actually happened.
From Robert Frost:
Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
From Hemingway:
Everyone needs a clean, well-lighted place.
From Robert Bolt:
You either write it, or you talk it to death.
From William Blake:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wildflower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour
From Tom Stoppard:
We emerge from the womb bloody and screaming, and knowing that for all the signposts in the world, there is only one direction, and time is its only measure.
From W.H. Auden:
Tears are round, the sea is deep,
Roll them overboard, and sleep.
From W.B Yeats:
(On rediscovering his creativity)
I will lie down where all the ladders start:
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
From Tolstoy:
Only one step lies between a five-year-old child and a man of my age. Between a newborn baby and a five-year-old child lies a huge distance. Between a fetus and a newborn baby lies an abyss; and between non-existence and a fetus lies not only an abyss, but a gulf that surpasses comprehension.
From Shakespeare:
Thou hast nor youth nor age, but as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, dreaming on both.
This thou perceiv'st which makes thy love more strong
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
From Tolstoy's diary:
Sometimes a man tells a woman more than he should. He forgets, but she never does. The worst thing is not a woman who holds a man by his balls, but she who holds him by his soul.
From War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator (Actually, Mac Grider, a young World War I pilot):
Courage is doing your duty even though you're scared as hell... It takes a brave man even to experience fear.
From W. H. Auden:
You shall love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart.
From Dylan Thomas:
Now as I was young and easy
In the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying,
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
From T. S. Eliot:
Shall I, after tea and cakes and ices
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted,
Wept and prayed, though I have seen my head,
Grown slightly bald, brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet, and here's no great matter.
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat
And snicker, and in short: I was afraid.
From Tolstoy:
Speak less. We often regret having spoken too much, but we never regret remaining silent.
The Amish and Hollywood
I was deeply disturbed last week at the news of the shootings in the Amish school in Pennsylvania. When I turned on the television that morning and caught the headline, I immediately thought it some sort of tasteless joke. A shooting in an Amish school? This is carrying mock-journalism too far.
Then, as I continued to watch, I became increasingly dismayed. I was born and raised in Philadelphia, and the Amish were never far from my youth. I was fascinated by them as a boy, and came to admire them greatly as an adult. I made several trips out to Lancaster County in an effort to make their acquaintance and understand their values. I met with bishops and common farmers, and read and wrote about the culture. I had planned to make a documentary film about them, but I took to heart the lesson urged on me in my last visit: To respect them and leave them alone.
I never viewed the Amish as quaint or picturesque, or even as odd. I saw them instead as people engaged in an enormous struggle - a struggle against the encroachment of modernity into the world of faith. 'I can resist anything but temptation,’ Oscar Wilde said; well, the Amish have chosen to insulate themselves as far as possible from temptation, understanding that few of us - themselves included - can resist it.
To be left alone by what they call the 'English' world is all that the Amish have ever really asked. Recent reports of abuse within the community only served to remind me that they are, after all, merely human like ourselves. But unlike ourselves, they have chosen, generation after generation, to live 'the way we believe God wants us to,' as one bishop said simply to me.
But finally, it appears, the world came crashing into their isolation, in the form of an angry little man with a score to settle, and guns to settle it with. The product of violence himself (as it appears from the accounts), he transported that violence into the most peaceful precinct of America. In the midst of a private nightmare, he invaded a communal dream, and the victims, as they so often are, were children. Amish children, brought up from birth to love God and practice peace, were gunned down execution-style in a school the existence of which was mandated by the state. We did not leave them alone. We cannot leave them alone. Because we cannot stop hurting ourselves.
What do I mean by this? That the culture outside the Amish world is sick and bloated with violence. And much of that violence, oddly enough, appears in the form of entertainment. Violence as entertainment; brutality as diversion; killing as fun: these are the very kinds of values which the Amish seek to exile from their lives, and from which they struggle against great odds to protect their children.
But it is not enough to isolate yourself, not enough to withdraw from the general culture, not enough to put your faith in God. The bogey men of popular culture will hunt you down and find you and devour you as surely as Michael Meyers does, even after he has been killed and burned and buried. On he comes, in movie after movie, and not even death can stop him. For he is more than death, greater than death – he is entertainment.
For this I feel ashamed, and for my part in it, as a screenwriter, I feel a brine of guilt adhering to my flanks as it would to a rivet in a cruise ship hull. For I am one of the fastenings in the ironplate of popular culture that enables the vast engine to steam on. I am helping to make this sort of thing possible, by modeling violence and cruelty and unkindness in my work. I and the industry for which I write are debasing the behavior of Americans just as surely as the penitentiary hardens criminals.
The captive audience of popular culture emerges from years of media brutality believing in the efficacy of violence, and accepting the inevitability of it in their lives. The capacity for shock is beaten out of us on our screens; the dismay reflex is blunted; shame becomes as quaint to us as an Amish buggy. The only real emotion that we feel is relief when we reflect that we have not yet been mugged, we have not yet been murdered. We do not expect to be safe in this society; we hope only to be lucky. And when that luck runs out, as it usually does, we are not in the least surprised.
In entertainment, the gun is portrayed as the solution, if not in the long run, then certainly in the short. It has become our nickel-plated God, the final arbiter of all discord, the one friend upon whom we can always rely. In violence we trust, and as a result, we are changed. To be human means to act inhumanely. To be a man means to become an animal. To be alive means to kill.
In the days of the temperance movement, early in the last century, when our culture awakened from its habitual daze long enough to understand that alcohol was the most dangerous drug of all precisely because it was so commonplace and so widely accepted, it was popular for people to ‘take the pledge.’ That meant making a solemn promise to refrain forever from its use, for the sake of oneself, one’s family, and the larger society. And people did take the pledge, and wore symbols to show it to others, and to encourage them to do likewise.
I want to take the pledge now: That in my work, I will not model or glorify inhuman behavior so far as it is possible to do so. Granted, we must write violence, even grave violence, when the subject matter calls for it. Neither ‘Hamlet’ nor ‘War and Peace’ could exist otherwise. But I want solemnly to pledge that I will not seek out violence and inhumanity for the sake of their impact alone, and that I will never display them in my work simply to make a buck. And I want to ask my colleagues in the entertainment business to do likewise.
I want those people who make films like ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ and ‘Saw,’ and ‘Hostel' to stop doing what they are doing, because they are doing it to the culture, and, worse, they are doing it to our children. They are teaching a lesson about the validity of violence for its entertainment value, about the fun aspects of inhumanity, about the primacy of death, which is degrading our way of life, and endangering us all. For if even Amish children are not immune from its effects, then who among us can put a head on a pillow at night, or tuck in our little ones, with anything like tranquility of heart?
Then, as I continued to watch, I became increasingly dismayed. I was born and raised in Philadelphia, and the Amish were never far from my youth. I was fascinated by them as a boy, and came to admire them greatly as an adult. I made several trips out to Lancaster County in an effort to make their acquaintance and understand their values. I met with bishops and common farmers, and read and wrote about the culture. I had planned to make a documentary film about them, but I took to heart the lesson urged on me in my last visit: To respect them and leave them alone.
I never viewed the Amish as quaint or picturesque, or even as odd. I saw them instead as people engaged in an enormous struggle - a struggle against the encroachment of modernity into the world of faith. 'I can resist anything but temptation,’ Oscar Wilde said; well, the Amish have chosen to insulate themselves as far as possible from temptation, understanding that few of us - themselves included - can resist it.
To be left alone by what they call the 'English' world is all that the Amish have ever really asked. Recent reports of abuse within the community only served to remind me that they are, after all, merely human like ourselves. But unlike ourselves, they have chosen, generation after generation, to live 'the way we believe God wants us to,' as one bishop said simply to me.
But finally, it appears, the world came crashing into their isolation, in the form of an angry little man with a score to settle, and guns to settle it with. The product of violence himself (as it appears from the accounts), he transported that violence into the most peaceful precinct of America. In the midst of a private nightmare, he invaded a communal dream, and the victims, as they so often are, were children. Amish children, brought up from birth to love God and practice peace, were gunned down execution-style in a school the existence of which was mandated by the state. We did not leave them alone. We cannot leave them alone. Because we cannot stop hurting ourselves.
What do I mean by this? That the culture outside the Amish world is sick and bloated with violence. And much of that violence, oddly enough, appears in the form of entertainment. Violence as entertainment; brutality as diversion; killing as fun: these are the very kinds of values which the Amish seek to exile from their lives, and from which they struggle against great odds to protect their children.
But it is not enough to isolate yourself, not enough to withdraw from the general culture, not enough to put your faith in God. The bogey men of popular culture will hunt you down and find you and devour you as surely as Michael Meyers does, even after he has been killed and burned and buried. On he comes, in movie after movie, and not even death can stop him. For he is more than death, greater than death – he is entertainment.
For this I feel ashamed, and for my part in it, as a screenwriter, I feel a brine of guilt adhering to my flanks as it would to a rivet in a cruise ship hull. For I am one of the fastenings in the ironplate of popular culture that enables the vast engine to steam on. I am helping to make this sort of thing possible, by modeling violence and cruelty and unkindness in my work. I and the industry for which I write are debasing the behavior of Americans just as surely as the penitentiary hardens criminals.
The captive audience of popular culture emerges from years of media brutality believing in the efficacy of violence, and accepting the inevitability of it in their lives. The capacity for shock is beaten out of us on our screens; the dismay reflex is blunted; shame becomes as quaint to us as an Amish buggy. The only real emotion that we feel is relief when we reflect that we have not yet been mugged, we have not yet been murdered. We do not expect to be safe in this society; we hope only to be lucky. And when that luck runs out, as it usually does, we are not in the least surprised.
In entertainment, the gun is portrayed as the solution, if not in the long run, then certainly in the short. It has become our nickel-plated God, the final arbiter of all discord, the one friend upon whom we can always rely. In violence we trust, and as a result, we are changed. To be human means to act inhumanely. To be a man means to become an animal. To be alive means to kill.
In the days of the temperance movement, early in the last century, when our culture awakened from its habitual daze long enough to understand that alcohol was the most dangerous drug of all precisely because it was so commonplace and so widely accepted, it was popular for people to ‘take the pledge.’ That meant making a solemn promise to refrain forever from its use, for the sake of oneself, one’s family, and the larger society. And people did take the pledge, and wore symbols to show it to others, and to encourage them to do likewise.
I want to take the pledge now: That in my work, I will not model or glorify inhuman behavior so far as it is possible to do so. Granted, we must write violence, even grave violence, when the subject matter calls for it. Neither ‘Hamlet’ nor ‘War and Peace’ could exist otherwise. But I want solemnly to pledge that I will not seek out violence and inhumanity for the sake of their impact alone, and that I will never display them in my work simply to make a buck. And I want to ask my colleagues in the entertainment business to do likewise.
I want those people who make films like ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,’ and ‘Saw,’ and ‘Hostel' to stop doing what they are doing, because they are doing it to the culture, and, worse, they are doing it to our children. They are teaching a lesson about the validity of violence for its entertainment value, about the fun aspects of inhumanity, about the primacy of death, which is degrading our way of life, and endangering us all. For if even Amish children are not immune from its effects, then who among us can put a head on a pillow at night, or tuck in our little ones, with anything like tranquility of heart?
A Thought at 5 AM
I wrote earlier to an old friend who says she has no religious faith, and who boasts of her disbelief (as so many do nowadays) that it is a mark, indeed a necessity, of being sophisticated and enlightened and mature. And she takes comfort in the fact that everyone she knows shares her views.
It seems to me that she is like a person who lives next to some horrid chemical plant, breathing in its putrid fumes, subsisting on a fraction of the oxygen she needs, while commenting on the quaint, even lovely color of the haze, and the way the sunlight shines through it at certain times of day. Or she is like a longtime smoker who compares the taste and fragrance of the tobacco she uses with that of her friends who are also addicted. Or she is like a patient in a cancer ward deriving comfort from the fact that everyone around her is equally ill, equally doomed, and decaying at the same pace as she.
We have lost our innocence, yes, but through a long process of life and loss and longing we come at last to see that it can be replaced with the source of innocence itself, which contains us and beckons to us, and holds out the hope that we may once again become that which we were before the corrosive influence of life brought tears to our eyes. We have become used to seeing the world through those tears, thinking that everything is dim and blurred and fluid, and forgetting what we once were and are and will be again: children of wonder.
It seems to me that she is like a person who lives next to some horrid chemical plant, breathing in its putrid fumes, subsisting on a fraction of the oxygen she needs, while commenting on the quaint, even lovely color of the haze, and the way the sunlight shines through it at certain times of day. Or she is like a longtime smoker who compares the taste and fragrance of the tobacco she uses with that of her friends who are also addicted. Or she is like a patient in a cancer ward deriving comfort from the fact that everyone around her is equally ill, equally doomed, and decaying at the same pace as she.
We have lost our innocence, yes, but through a long process of life and loss and longing we come at last to see that it can be replaced with the source of innocence itself, which contains us and beckons to us, and holds out the hope that we may once again become that which we were before the corrosive influence of life brought tears to our eyes. We have become used to seeing the world through those tears, thinking that everything is dim and blurred and fluid, and forgetting what we once were and are and will be again: children of wonder.
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